http://mscassidysclass.edublogs.org
Ms. Cassidy's Class was a blog created by a first grade teacher to document what her students were learning, primarily for parents to understand what was going on in the classroom. Ms. Cassidy felt that by blogging, students were more motivated to be engaged in class room activities--knowing that what they were doing would be documented. She also, at times, lets her students directly post comments on the blog so that they can experience being "authors". I believe that multimedia features within the blog are very useful for Ms. Cassidy. She uses many pictures throughout her blog posts and occasionally videos. Along the right sidebar, there is a live twitter feed of the class that is featured, showing comments the children have said in regards to the material in class. Not only does the teacher post on her own blog, but there is a link to each of the children in the class to document what they are learning personally.
http://www.sciencefix.com
This blog was created as a resource to provide middle school science teachers with material and videos to present in class. He used a lot of great videos that explained scientific concepts that at times can be hard to just verbally teach without a visual. For this blogger, using the imbed video feature (from YouTube) within a post was very useful! All of his videos were available on YouTube, which made it possible for him to embed the content. Not only is this a great resource for teachers to use his material, but for students who are seeking a more visual lesson in science.
http://excusememrsc.blogspot.com
This blog focuses mainly on teaching strategies for first and second graders. This blogger also found the multimedia features essential to having a productive blog. She provided clear and easy instructions to many different educational activities that first/second graders could enjoy. She utilized the blogs template to ensure a simple design, which made the information easier to take in (not many distractions, or ads on the sidebars).
It seems as though teachers used blogs to enhance their learning in several ways. Some of the ways I took note of are as follows:
1. Posting students content to give them a sense of ownership for their work.
2. Providing resources for other teachers of successful learning activities.
3. Opening up discussions by posting a certain article and allowing students to post comments below.
4. Posting content and study resources that would be helpful for students.
How I might use blogs in my future career:
As you can see with the blog I created, it's a rough template of something that could be used within my future career. I am majoring in community health, and am passionate about the well-being of those around me. I could use this blog to provide resources for people on a nation or world wide scale to help people learn to better balance their life and increase their health. While I would not use a blog as my primary income, by the use of advertisements and sponsorships, it could become a source of income alongside whatever other career ventures I choose.
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